A strategy of terror threatens our democracy

Leonardtown, MD - In response to Osama Bin Laden's asymmetric attack on our Homeland, the Patriot Act was passed. A serious consequence of this act took away two significant rights and freedoms for US Citizens and our Democracy.

1: The Posse Comitatus Act was a United States Federal law which limited the powers of the Federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States.

2: We also used to live with the protection of Habeas Corpus which enabled state and federal courts to issue writs, or legal actions to determine the legality of an individual's imprisonment. These two protections did not guarantee protection from unlawful arrest, but they did protect us from indefinite, illegal detention.

Two of the fundamental foundations of our democracy are gone.

George Orwell got it right. He just missed the time frame and the technology needed to mature. Win one for the forces of evil

We have witnessed barbarism on our TV screens that harkens back to the middle ages, we have seen Edward Snowden take all of our intelligence information and open it to the world, some or many individuals in the western world have been radicalized, commonly known as lone wolves, a phrase that is now firmly embedded in our lexicon.

The terrorists who want to destroy the "Satan of the west" are at our door. I suggest that we are in a critical phase of the war on terror as mass shootings on innocent men, women and children are becoming the new normal. We have become numbed to the incidents.

To bring it really home that the Barbarians are knocking at the gate, a terrible tragedy was averted in St. Mary's County. Not for the devastated community of Parkland in Florida however.

Our Congress and Presidents have not been able to deliver solutions. Has it come to "see something, say something" is our only defense? Where are the statesmen and women who can lead us through this black time? How do we calm the fears of our children going to school? We desperately need leaders of the ilk of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill.

One of our most basic freedoms is still intact. We can vote, we must vote, it is the duty of every citizen to exercise that right. Vote at the local, state and federal level. It appears to be our most potent weapon to win the war and hold The Republic safe.